[Deck] Armageddon Stax

[f|i[p]]

Nobody is dismissing anything at all, the moment you dismiss any thoughts on the deck, its like saying, there is no improvement needed.

@ this statement "It's time to move on and find a way to pummel aggro-control and combo. It's a new age, and I'm ready to move on"

I don't understand this statement, I think we already have good matchups against combo and aggro-control.


I just said my thoughts on the splashes and I still do testing on them as much as I can. And yeah, I did forget about to mention leyline, but leyline does belong to the sideboard as well.

Blue is a good color to splash,but is splashing blue really worth it?

Magus vs. Pendrell, although I can see pendrell mists being harder to remove than magus, Magus also stalls the game as he blocks as well as attacks. Against a goblin player they would rather see pendrell over magus, as that means they can slowly take you down.Thus you can only slow them down when you have ghostly prison/propaganda and pendrell mists together. Magus can stall them by itself.So I will still stand by my thought that Magus is a lot better than pendrell mists

Armageddon vs. parallax tide, armageddon is strictly better.

As for win conditions, I think there are lots blue and white has to offer, but white I think gives the faster win condition.

Intuition/ loam/ruins is quite good, and I tested it quite often against goblins. And tutoring is still good even if the deck is as redundant as you think. It gives you the option to actually get the missing piece to finish off your lock or finish the game, rather than drawing more trinispheres,chalices, crucible when you dont really want to see more of them at the given moment.

As for blue, intuition or gifts are the sole reason I would splash blue.

But I wouldn't change the fact that I still think that academy ruins is quite slow during my tests. But if ruins proves to be worth the inclusion, I would most likely want to have an artifact beater or blocker.

[Arsenal]

Goblins has access to a tutorable and recurring Warren Weirding now, so Magus might be considerably weaker than before. I still like Pendrell over Magus for what the goal is; pay (1) on upkeep or sacrifice the creature. However, Magus allows for a win condition and Goyf blocker, but can be removed more easily. It's 50/50 imo. Their respective advantages/disadvantages almost cancel each other out.

If you run blue, and run Intuition/Gifts/TfK/tutor/draw/etc, you should run Ruins. That's the whole point. I can see where Intuition for crucial lockpiece can come in handy, so yeah, blue is crazy like that. However, if you chose to keep it on color (white), what about Enlightened Tutor? Obviously not the same as Intution, but worth testing at least?

Win conditions seem to be in white's favor slightly. However, as suggested by a member on mtgsalvation.com, mono-blue Stax playing Solemn Sirculamen, Shackles, and Triskelion/Triskelavus + Ruins seemed interesting.

SB cards that each color gives you seems to be even.

What of mono-white's Flagstones of Trokair? These help immensely with an active Smokestack, while blue seems to lack such a land.

[The Wes]

I think people are dismissing the black white splash too quickly. It’s not just for pox. As was said black gives us vindicates, braids, engineered plague, volrath’s stronghold, shriekmaw, and leyline / yixlid jailor. I’m sure there is more but off the top of my head I’m getting a blank.

Flagstones of Trokair and Armageddon I think are two of the better reasons to keep at least the main color white. I tried enlightened tutor for a while and always had problems with it being 1 casting cost. Either I was paying too much and waiting a turn for an answer or not able to cast it all because of chalice. Just didn’t seem worth it to me.

Remember, you should be running Tabernacle of the Pendrel Vale as a 1 or 2 of in your lands anyway. Magus or the enchant are just for more help.

Blue does offer the ability to search for lock pieces and recur them, but in my testing I just didn’t find it worth it. Granted pretty much 99% of my testing has been on workstation so take that with a grain of salt.

Either way I’ll be taking my w/b stax to Hadley for their tourney in March like I took it to both Syracuse and Hadley in January. Sadly I don’t think we have that good of a game against landstill, 4 of my 5 rounds in Syracuse (I did beat it once and go to game 3 every other time), and in Hadley I just scrubbed out then went to the finals in the side event. In the finals I got stuck on 2 land game one while drawing 3 ghostly prisons in a row and in game 3 I also got stuck on 2 land while over the course of 7 turns drawing 3 vindicates and 3 armageddons. Having a splash or not doesn’t help with mana screw when you are running 25 lands.

[Arsenal]

I feel as though we're already Wasteland-vulnerable (early game, pre-Crucible) w/ reliance on Tombs and Traitors. Flagstones laughs at Wasteland. With a splash, do you run duals/fetches/basics? What's the mana config look like, and how does fetches interact w/ Suppression Field out of the board?

[The Wes]

Well, this is what I used at the last turny I went to:

4 x Ancient Tomb
4 x Scrubland
3 x Godless Shrine
2 x The Tabernacle of the Pendrel Vale
1 x Horizon Canopy
1 x Swamp
3 x Flagstones
4 x Wasteland
3 x Plains

You are still running 8 black sources, 12 if you include the mox diamonds. The only fetch lands I use are the Flagstones. It looses a little bit of the explosiveness from not having as many 2 or 3 mana opening turns, but I'm currently testing with City of Traitors:

-1 Godless Shrine
-1 Wasteland
-1 The Tabernacle of the Pendrel Vale
for
3 x City of Traitors

[Arsenal]

That looks good. I too wouldn't use fetchlands, just Flagstones to grab duals; decent synergy of Flagstones + Ravnica duals (less expensive $$$ too). I would definitely run 3 City of Traitors + 4 Ancient Tomb; this is what allows Stax to consistently drop a lockpiece on turn 1/2 (crucial).

[Dark_Cynic87]

ok, lots of responding to do:

ARSENAL:

Parallax Tide v. Armageddon. Parallax Tide does allow you to play some neat tricks sometimes with your own lands, but more often than not, you'll be using Tide counters to remove your opponent's lands, causing their creatures to die from your Pendrell Mists. My problem is that Parallax Tide only offers a temporary solution, while Armageddon offers a more permanent one. Magus + Armageddon >> Pendrell Mists + Parallax Tide, imo.

here's where you are off. I didn't say play only blue or only white. The idea would be to run some of each. and we're splashing. Not switching to blue. I'm just showing options. Hense the comparation of Rule of Law and Laboratory and Prison and Propaganda. I'm not saying anything other than "hey look, redundancy." Btw, I've always wondered why Lab/Law is only a SB card. It halts the use of digging into a Force with a Brainstorm. I like that. Also, a turn-1 drop of this would make goyf come down a lot slower.

With Parallax Tide, the idea is to make them overextend with lands (someone mentioned overextending with creatures). Remove theirs, they can't play around 3sphere so they drop more. Or, they can't pay for Prison/Propaganda/Tabernacle effects, so they drop more. Once they overextend, then you Geddon. It also gives you more time to draw into stuff. Not to mention you can sac it off to Stax the turn it's gonna go away.

as to blue killspells and white killspells, they should be the same. Factories. If you want, I suppose Faerie Conclave, but I don't like it as it requires blue. Don't worry about your killspell being a creature. That isn't a very good idea with Goyfs running around. Vindicate is one of the most popular cards right now anyway. May as well run a small recurrable killspell as opposed to a big one that stays gone...

And of course tutoring is necessary. If you run 3 Intuition, and 3 of each business spell along with Ruins, you basically run 6 of each. More redundancy = more consistancy. Cutting business spells for tutors is fine.

Wasteland will always be a problem. Here's an idea, needle it.

FILIPINHO:
Totem is bad. Idyllic Tutor only searches for enchantments, which is lousy considering your lock consists of artifacts. Why wouldn't you just run Intuition. And I'm laughing my pants off hearing people talk about Enlightened Tutor. Here's why. 1cc. Then, it puts the card on top of your library. So, if it's not countered, it puts a card you need on top of your library...remind you of a certain land? cough*ruins*coughcough.

I have never seen so many people against recurrable recursion.

THE WES:

Vindicate is old news, not to mention W/x stax got a better card. Oblivion Ring. Still a sorcery-speed 3cc, only 1 color, and its able to come down a turn faster thanx to the double colorless in the casting cost. Better yet, it's a permanent, so if you remove a critter or land, just toss it to Smokestack the upkeep before you blast their lands. Keep using fetches, as they are also waste-proof. They shuffle your deck, and go off when you need them to, as opposed to waiting for a second one, wasting it yourself, or them wasting it. When you hit a land-pocket, you can reshuffle for better topdecks. And you still run S. Fields? What do they help with? Thresh, an already positive matchup (besides the counterspells)? Wastelands that you yourself use?

FLIP:
Leyline is NOT a sb card. Maindeck it. It's the most powerful card you can get in your opening hand. Hinders some builds of Storm, Thresh rolls over to it (if you can play around it without putting to much variety in your g/y), Ichorid becomes nothingness to you (just mull until you hit one). Loam builds die, which means Loam builds of 43 lands becomes so much easier.

@ this statement "It's time to move on and find a way to pummel aggro-control and combo. It's a new age, and I'm ready to move on"

I don't understand this statement, I think we already have good matchups against combo and aggro-control.

You do have a decent matchup, but if they have any experience at all against stax, they know what's important to counter. Magii and Smokestack. Ensnaring Bridge against Sun Tower. Chalice at 1/2. To a lesser extent, 3sphere (can play around it as long as they don't let an Armageddon Resolve, which they can't let happen anyways as they run very few actual mana-producing lands). I'm saying that we need to make their counterspells less effective. A lot less effective. Its what is keeping them in the upper tier of the metagame.


/end responses.
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Redundancy is what drives this deck. I'm saying, let's get redundant. 6 non-land Tabernacle effects, 2 Tabernacles. 8 'Geddon effects (I play 5 geddons and 3 Tides in a test-build I'm running; may up to 6/2 ratio), and then top it off with tutors. I was playing this deck against a combo deck the other day. They EtW'ed for 18 turn 1. I dropped a Tabernacle (land). Player Lost is what my PC screen said; same thing has happened when someone else EtW'ed for 16 goblins, only to be met by a Diamond and City into a Ghostly Prison. Tendrils is harder to beat, but you COULD run Stifles in the SB. Or Orim's Chant. They get storm up to so high, you Chant. Or, they Burning Wish/Infernal Tutor and you Chant. You only need them turn 1, so it doesn't matter after that; With E. Tutor it does. After that, you've dropped a lock piece, either 3sphere or Chalice. Once the chalice is dropped, it's no big deal that they are unplayable, because you just won.

Also, a card often considered a silver bullet would be eligible for the deck. Meddling Mage. 2cc makes it iffy against Goyf players, but in the SB, naming Tendrils would be good (I know they run wipe aways, but still, buys you time to get down 3sphere/Chalice).

It's a serious consideration, and I'm working on a list. It may take another week or 2 before I'm ready to reveal it, but it's coming along.

--DC

[emidln]

Blue splashes automatically have two win conditions available to them, and either works. The first is Mishra's Factory beats. If your opponent has no permanents in play and can't cast spells, 2 a turn will get it done. By this point in the game, it'll likely even be 4-6 a turn. The next is decking by Academy Ruins recursion. Recur TCrypt, EE, or Chalice (you'll need a chalice at an even number) every turn until they deck. This is obvious worse than attacking ftw, but it is a viable win condition as long as you enforce slow play rules and know your deck inside and out.

[Arsenal]

Dark_Cynic87 -

You laugh at Enlightened Tutor for mono-white builds, inferring that the 1cc makes it unplayable, yet further down your post you suggest using Stifle and/or Orim's Chant? Please explain your logic.

RE: Parallax Tide. I don't know what kind of bad players you test against, but NOBODY I've come across overextends after I remove 2-3 of their lands; they usually wait me out (that whole fading thing, you know). You say Parallax Tide allows you to draw into stuff; inferring that Armageddon does not (WTF?). Please explain you logic here too. Also, 2UU isn't exactly a splash.

Yes, Wasteland is a minor problem in the early game, and how astute of you to tell me to Needle it... but again, according to you, 1cc makes it no good (see your response to Enlightened Tutor for mono-white builds). Also, I highly doubt you'd run Needle maindeck (if at all), which is what I'm talking about; we can discuss SB later.

Win conditions for blue and white are not the same. Not taking mutual win conditions into account (Factories), what makes blue's kill (Ruins + something) better than white's kill (Exalted Angel + Magi)? I don't understand this logic of "they should be the same". If that's true, why play one color over the other? What win condition advantages do I gain with splashing blue or splashing white?

I think you need to re-evaluate your thinking of most of what you posted. Wanting to play Needle, Stifle, Chant... but brushing E. Tutor aside because of 1cc?

[The Wes]

I can’t see Law/Laboratory as a mainboard card. I don’t like limiting myself to dropping a mox on my second turn and just passing. Besides, lots of agro decks don’t need to play more than one creature each turn, they can vial or lackey in pleny more. Besides lots of decks can have a 3/4 evil green creature turn two, and that’s still a decent clock when they can play a counter a turn to stop your threats. Being able to play two spells in a turn lets you get around counters often when you have your trini out to slow them down.

Are we supposed to run needles main? If so what do we take out in place of them? Or when we side them what about all the times that chalice stops them from being played?

When ever I’ve tried Intuition I always seemed to just rather have 4 of my business spells instead. Often Intuition just helped make their Goyf bigger and allowed them to still counter my one spell I kept.

I’m a big fan of a few different win conditions since I’ve been seeing more and more extirpates being brought in against me. My wastelands and mishra’s are hit a lot when I don’t have a chalice set at 1.

I agree with Idyllic Tutor not being the best. I’ve been trying to use it in different versions of stax but so far not that great of results.
I think tide works best when you run stifles main and that’s just a different deck.

Sure vindicate is old news, doesn’t mean its bad( run a combination of both vindicates and o rings between main and sb), the stax themselves are old news. I know in several situations oblivion ring is better, but with every deck you run into bringing in ways of destroying artifacts and enchants its not always as permanent of an answer as I’d like. Also any deck that can support the EEs is going to be trying to set them at 3 to take out your crucibles, prisons enchant, trinis, o rings, and labs if you are running them.

How are you supposed to know when you have hit a land pocket in order to break the fetch at the correct time? We don’t have ways of looking at the top cards of our library. The chances of hitting a land after you fetch is only slightly less than hitting a land befor you fetch. I’m not saying that fetches are bad in all builds, just that the reasoning you used there doesn’t quite work.

Lets see, I bring s. fields in against any deck that runs loam and cycling lands, equipment decks like fairy and dragon stompy (absolutely kills jitte), and landstill at least. It hurts cycle lands, equipment, man lands, fetches, deeds, EEs, vial, ports, and lots of other things. Yes please, I’d like it in the sb.

There are decks that can run Leyline main, but this isn’t one of them. You add leyline main what are you going to take out? Lots of storm doesn’t care about it, it doesn’t bother many agro decks, and doesn’t really help the lock. Yes loam dies to it, but loam runs green which I am pretty sure can get rid of an enchant given a little bit of time. Besides, how do you know if you need to mull into a leyline game one? Game two sure you know, but then you could have just sb’d it in anyway. Evem woth it out thresh is still going to counter stuff to make their Gyof bigger.

Decks that go EtW’s against us deserve to loose. Its never been that great of a threat against stax. White alone has the tools to deal with it as Cartman showed. I’ve always thought that chalice for 0 and 1 to be the strongest plays gainst most storm combo decks, doesn’t that get in the way of the stifle/orim’s chant doing its job? I’d rather stop their mana excel from the beginning than try and wait around.

Any color, regardless of splash can have Mishra’s beats as a win con, so that’s rather besides the point. I don’t’ think we should be looking for decking as a reliable means to win. Sure if we win game 1 going to time game two is no problem, but what do we do if we loose game 1? Hope we can deck them game 2 and 3? I hope you play where there are 2 hour rounds. You sometimes go to time anyway.

I’m definitely not saying don’t try it, I love white stax with splashes. I do see though how parts of the deck might not run the best together.

[f|i[p]]

@ meddling mage--- Rule of law or arcane lab is better than meddling mage. It takes them only 1 turn to bounce mage and go off, as it takes them 2 for rule of law or arcane lab. Also, if you would want another interesting sideboard against combo, you should try mana maze, its amazing, almost better than rule of law. This also offers you the ability to go Intuition then armageddon(considering you already have mana maze in play).That means your armageddon and intuition cannot be countered at all.

@leyline being maindeck material--- I'll leave you to your thoughts on that. I however don't see it as maindeck material at all. I don't want to discuss this further as it won't help the deck in anyway.

@ vindicate--- Although oblivion ring is a permanent is better than vindicate at times, It cannot hit lands. At times I played with the W/b version I had Vindicate had its uses on stalling as well, it was good with armageddon,and a full set of wastelands to back it up. Color screwing your opponent wins you games at times.

@enlightened tutor--- although its good and can fetch you artifacts and enchantment, chalice for 1 will stop it cold, which you always would want to have early game, or even a trinisphere early would delay it a few turns. Intuition/gifts is strictly better as It can get you creatures, armageddon, artifacts, enchantments, lands and whatever you need for the moment regardless of what it may be. If you do want to test it, you'll see that Intuition/gifts is a lot better.

@ emidln---I know you are one of the most experience stax player around in the source, have you won a tourney game by decking the opponent consistently ? with the time given to you in tourneys? There are some players who do love to stall and you eventually end up in a draw. I get sick of these people, I'm not even sure if they are thinking or just acting like they are thinking. Oh and this is not an offensive question at all. I'm simply curious.

@ blue win conditions--- I think they are still slow. I even considered Meloku at one time, but never tested her at all. She seems to be good with armageddon,wasteland and can help with city of traitors if you drop it early. Gives you token blockers and smokestack sacrifices.

@Idyllic tutor---I think this is a good card for enchantress. As for stax, you can't really tutor for anything, ghostly prison and possibly some sideboard cards if ever. I don't think they belong in stax at all, unless we do run more enchantments.

@fetchlands--- If I were to splash, Id still run fetchlands, maybe 2-3. Just ways of thinning the deck or even getting a basic land into play.

@running blue for splash--- If I were to run blue, Id definitely have 3 intuitions/gifts,1 academy ruins and mana maze on my sideboard.(I would probably even put a hint of green just for loam)

@Dark Cynic87--I don't understand why your putting so much emphasis on sideboard cards against combo.Do you play in a combo heavy metagame? We already have a good match against combo.Although I understand and I know we can play stifle or even orims chant against combo, since you can use it after they do bounce your chalice @1. I ran extirpate on my sideboard for my W/b version as a 4 of just to make sure I take out certain lands with wasteland/vindicate and extirpate them away for good . Extirpate however is a different story as it is very versatile card, it helps against combo and landstill, thresh and a lot of other deck as well. I don't understand why you are focusing on the good matchups rather than the bad ones. You should be concerned about Landstill, loam and the rock variants.

[emidln]

There isn't actually a need for other win conditions besides factory and ruins recursion. Every other deck ever will outdraw you. They will break a fetch, brainstorm, sac a tribe elder, something to gain CA over you. Then you'll deck them assuming you're not up against Battle of Wits. Stax wins the game when it resolves its stax lock. That should always be the first and foremost win condition because it beats everything without Simian Spirit Guide, Elvish Spirit Guide, or Ichorid. If your opponent has no permanents in play and can't play spells, your win condition doesn't matter. It doesn't take more than a couple seconds for an opponent with no options to draw and discard. Most judges will enforce this. This allows you to use the Stax lock itself to get the win through decking, or allows you to eventually find a factory and kill them. In my opinion, Exalted Angel shouldn't be considered as a win condition as much as another bomb lock pieces that accelerates the effectiveness of your other lock pieces (Chalice, Trinisphere, Smokestack, etc) by making your opponent deal with a large threat. The issue is that this works against the Pendrell permanents by requiring mana up and would also work against Ensnaring Bridge. If you want to play bomb-ish lock pieces, you should really look into Words of Wilding/Sylvan Library because they are harder to answer (you need more than the widely played STP) and they synergize with Smokestack better.

To summarize:

- I don't believe speed is a factor in considering win conditions for stax if played properly.
- Given this belief, I believe no extra pieces outside of Factory and Ruins are needed to win matches
- If you do want extra win conditions, something that better synergizes with Smokestack would appear to be stronger than Angel.

[Dark_Cynic87]

Dark_Cynic87 -

You laugh at Enlightened Tutor for mono-white builds, inferring that the 1cc makes it unplayable, yet further down your post you suggest using Stifle and/or Orim's Chant? Please explain your logic.

RE: Parallax Tide. I don't know what kind of bad players you test against, but NOBODY I've come across overextends after I remove 2-3 of their lands; they usually wait me out (that whole fading thing, you know). You say Parallax Tide allows you to draw into stuff; inferring that Armageddon does not (WTF?). Please explain you logic here too. Also, 2UU isn't exactly a splash.

Yes, Wasteland is a minor problem in the early game, and how astute of you to tell me to Needle it... but again, according to you, 1cc makes it no good (see your response to Enlightened Tutor for mono-white builds). Also, I highly doubt you'd run Needle maindeck (if at all), which is what I'm talking about; we can discuss SB later.

Win conditions for blue and white are not the same. Not taking mutual win conditions into account (Factories), what makes blue's kill (Ruins + something) better than white's kill (Exalted Angel + Magi)? I don't understand this logic of "they should be the same". If that's true, why play one color over the other? What win condition advantages do I gain with splashing blue or splashing white?

I think you need to re-evaluate your thinking of most of what you posted. Wanting to play Needle, Stifle, Chant... but brushing E. Tutor aside because of 1cc?

I already explained the reason for the E. Tutor vs. Stifle/Chant. You board them in against combo. If you drop a chalice at 1 before they go off, you're fine. If you don't and they go off either on the draw or turn 2, you have a better chance at stopping their combo by running 4x more answers and surviving to get a 3sphere down. Later in the game it won't matter. They (chants/stifles) turn into dead draws, but then again, if you run Intuition, it's not that big of a deal.

Needle is an answer and the best one there is so far to Wasteland (although stifle/Trickbind comes to mind yet again...). Sometimes you lose. That's how it works. With Needles post-board, you are set. If they feel the need to waste removal on a Needle, fine by me.

Parallax Tide: I'm not being smart with anyone, why are you? The point is to learn WHEN to play your cards and WHAT to target. Keep them at 2 lands until you can Intuition or draw into a 'Geddon. Buys time while you still have all your lands. That's the point. You have your lands, they don't. Even if you remove 2 or 3 lands, it really hurts with a 3sphere out. Stops you from getting things countered that they don't want to hit the board. If you don't like it, just say so and don't use it. And let it go. I'm not telling you how or what to play, I'm aggressively representing blue, nothing more (and that's saying something, as I don't like to play blue. Evar).

Needle (again): Of course you run P. Needle as a 4-of in the board. Earlier I asked a dumb question, which was what people still ran S. Fields for. I completely spaced P. Deed (I forgot loam was affected, also). My bad. I don't see them hardly ever. P. Needle is a necessary element in the board. See, there are 2 things you can learn from first game. What they play, and how well they play it. Deed (Funkbrew/GWB Goyf shit) is one of the hardest games for this deck. If you see a lot of them, I'd run both S. Fields and Needles. Check that, I'd stop playing Stax. Here's the thing about being a martyr: You still die.

So maybe my initial evaluation was alright...What do you think?

Moving on...

The Wes:

Don't run needles main. You probably aren't sure what they're playing, so naming something is a shot in the dark. Also, they will be mostly dead draws as a lot of decks don't really have a target other than Wastes or Fetches. While wasteland is a solid, safe bet, I don't think it warrants MD'ed Needles. Not to mention Chalice at 1 is almost always a better choice.

If extirpate is becoming a problem, a new manland was printed that would do well with Factories as a 2/2 split. I've also always been a supporter of a singleton Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai. Let's you up the counters on stax to 2.

Law/Lab was just an idea I'm still testing...Mixed results so far.

I agree that EE is a big threat to the safety of your lock. That's yet another reason I'm advocating Academy Ruins. I like it when people help prove my points...

Fetchlands clearing up land pockets: My bad, too used to sun tower to be objective here. I'm used to seeing the top 5 cards of my library every turn...

I play against a lot of combo and a lot of Thresh. Aggro is gone here. Utterly shut down by Goyf beatings all around. Well, that and bears being 2/2 chump blockers from hell.

Any color, regardless of splash can have Mishra’s beats as a win con, so that’s rather besides the point.

No. That IS the point. Mishra's Factory is your kill-spell. Exalted Angel sux.

and the final contestant....

Flip:

Mana Maze looks like a winner. I like it. Thx. Meloku is kind of a cool idea. I guess it's an out against Extirpate when you are about to 'Geddon...I don't see many other reasons to play it unless you are wanting to up Stax to 2 and still have something to swing with. Maybe, but I still say recurrable kill-spells are where it's at.

Lastly, I stress on the Combo matchup for 2 reasons. First, it's where the format is headed. Second, I know first (I play 4-color) and second hand(played against it) how powerful it is and how important the matchup is and will be very soon.

I respond to all the points, these last 2 posts have been tedious enough. I hit the important ones, though.

[emidln]

@ emidln---I know you are one of the most experience stax player around in the source, have you won a tourney game by decking the opponent consistently ? with the time given to you in tourneys? There are some players who do love to stall and you eventually end up in a draw. I get sick of these people, I'm not even sure if they are thinking or just acting like they are thinking. Oh and this is not an offensive question at all. I'm simply curious.

I've actually won a couple tourney games by decking. Usually I set it up with Words of Wilding + Smokestack + Trinisphere, sometimes with Ensnaring Bridge if the lock is mid to late game. In the past, my primary win condition was Time Vault + Smokestack + Trinisphere. You just need to call a judge to watch for slow play if your opp doesn't concede. Once they get to the point where they can't play anything, they shouldn't take more than a moment to draw and play a land/discard. As far as manually decking an opponent, I've done it to a Solidarity player with Boil combined with his Extirpates. He managed to extirpate my Mishra's Factories and Barbarian Rings and at the time I only played Factory/B.ring as a win condition. He had drawn more cards than me and I kept him locked under 3sphere with boil during his combo turn. After that, Smokestack wrapped up the game so he couldn't do anything other than draw, discard. I won in about 7 minutes.

[f|i[p]]

@emidln--- So you are actually saying that we should focus more on lock and win conditions that would have more synergy with the deck iteself as a whole, rather than having exalted angels?

I have actually tried W/U/g variant and thought that it wasn't enough,as I constantly had problems when i had words of wilding without library. I had to wait for intuition/gifts or the wilding itself to be able to complete it. But at that time I didn't really exclude exalted angels yet. Ill probably have to rebuild that deck and test it again without the angles and see how it goes from there.

But as comparison, does suntower have the same bad matchups as mono white stax?

@dark cynic87--- Meloku is just an idea, I havn't tested her at all. But mana maze rocks...Its really strong against combo, and very versatile as you can use them against landstill and counter heavy decks.

[emidln]

But as comparison, does suntower have the same bad matchups as mono white stax?

We learned to sb 4 Pithing Needle a year and a half ago to beat Deed and have boarded Welder as at minimum at 3-of until very recently when the deck moved into G/u. I think I even wrote a primer including the tech. As for bad machups, the current list's bad matchups include Goblins. In the past, I developed versions that beat Goblins pretty easily, but they include cards that are dead except against slow combo (Ichorid, Breakfast) and Goblins (like Aether Flash and Rolling Earthquake). Outside of playing lots of needles and academy ruins, there isn't really anything that would affect one matchup more than others. I play 3-4 Intuition to tutor for lock pieces I'm missing or setup the Loam/Ruins engine sometimes. Really, there is no reason that you couldn't play the "sun tower" tech in a white list, since all that's really unique about it is extensive use of Sylvan Library. The real difference is that I forgo LD in favor of redundancy and potential busted interactions involving Words of Wilding. I think you'd go like -5 geddon effects, -4 prison, -1 crucible, -2 magus , +3 intuition, +4 sylvan library, +3 words of wilding, +1 loam, +1 ee and adjust the manabase to from Geddon Stax to Sun Tower.

As far as effectiveness, Geddon effects make the Landstill and Mono White Control matchups slightly easier preboard and the anti-aggro package of the current Geddon Stax lists are better at stopping swarming aggro like ETW or Goblins than the G/u Tower list. The Tower package is really strong against discard and random aggro-control (UGR Thrash, UGB Tog/Thresh, UGB Madness, Baseruption, etc aka the decks can spell snare a chalice @ 1 and then protect stuff that would kill their quick goyf to steal victories from you). At the same time Sylvan Library + Words of Wilding is easy to setup with essentially 7 copies of one and 6 copies of the other with Sylvan Library helping to find Words of Wilding. It's also extremely difficult for most decks to deal with.

As far as Words of Wilding without Sylvan Library, I still love it. I frequently use it as a combo win condition or to maintain Smokestack @ 2 with a Crucible going. The combo win condition is Words of Wilding + Smokestack + Trinisphere (sometimes aided by Ensnaring Bridge). I don't have much trouble finding Library between 3 Intuition and 4 Library though.

[Arsenal]

I think I'm not on the same page as people; I'm talking about builds/card for mono-colored builds (mono-blue or mono-white), everyone seems to be talking splashes of various colors. I don't see the need for splashing when similar cards are offered on-color in mono-builds (Oblivion Ring v. Vindicate for example).

Until we get back onto how to optimize mono-colored Stax lists, I'll sit back and observe you guys.

[f|i[p]]

@arsenal--- we are just trying to compare and see if splashing is worth a try since right now monowhite does have a lot of problems that cannot simply be answered by mono colored stax, hence we are looking for a splash in hopes of improving the deck as itself against the problematic matchups.


@edmiln--- the thing is, the moment I take off the armageddon,and prison, And put all those pieces together, Wouldnt I be playing suntower already? I really think armageddon should not be taken off as It is what makes mono white very good. Ill try to reconfigure and fit in some pieces and see what I can and cannot take off.

[melie]

Hi, first post on here.

I'm playing white prison since Titania Songs decks where awesome. (still have my first version build :p)
Now it's true this deck is losing some of it's shine cause of the meta shifts. The main thing I think that needs to be changed is the kind of creature control. The current build is much to focused on mass creature decks. I don't think this is as efficient as it once was now that Tarmogoyf roams free in Legacy. Now this isn't that hard to adept to..
You can easily play Moat instead of Magus/Ghoslty prison. This stops allmost all relevant creatures in the Legacy format. Now, for the other slot, why don't play Ensnaring bridge? I'm testing this at the moment in combination with 2 Bottled Cloisters and it's aweome. Can drop his hand down to 2-3 cards before you hit turn 4..
I would still recoment to keep 1 of the taxing things. So for example;

2 Bottled Cloister (don't have to, but I like the card draw. My meta has lots of control & black discard)
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Magus of the Tabernacle

or

4 Magus of the Tabernacle
4 Moat

I just think that playing 8 taxing effects is to much in this meta and should be replaced with 4 taxing 4 complete denial effects.
Any thoughts on this?

[Jaiminho]

Cloister is only any good after you have locked your opponent, since they can destroy it and you will lose your hand.

I do like Ensnaring Bridge, but it conflicts with Exalted Angel, so I'd guess one has to choose between those two.

I'm pretty sure this has been discussed here already.